Cysteine proteinases containing a highly reactive cysteine residue with a free thiol group at the active site have been known as playing an important role in certain conditions distinguished by aberrant protein turnover such as: muscular dystrophy (Am. J. Pathol. 1986, 122, 193-198; Am. J. Pathol. 1987, 127, 461-466), myocardial infarction (J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 1983, 2, 681-688), bone resorption (Biochem. J. 1991, 279, 167-274; J. Biol. Chem. 1996, 271, 2126-2132; and Biochem. Biophys. Acta 1992, 1116, 57-66), arthritis (Arthritis Rheumatism 1994, 37, 236-247; and Biochem. Pharmacol. 1992, 44, 1201-1207), cancer metastasis (Cancer Metastasis Rev. 1990, 9, 333-352), pulmonary emphysema (Am. Rev. Respir. Dis. 1975, 111, 579-586), septic shock (Immunol. Today 1991, 11, 404-410, Biochemistry 1994, 33, 3934-3940), cerebral ischemia, memory function, Alzheimer and cataract (TIPS 1994, 15, 412-419, Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 1995, 4, 387-392, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 1991, 88, 10998-11002), malaria (J. Med. Chem. 1995, 38, 5031-5037), glomerular basement membrane degradation (Biochem Bioph. Acta 1989, 990, 246-251), bacterial infection (Nature 1989, 337, 385-386), inflammatory diseases (Protein Science 1995, 4, 3-12), parasitic infections (Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 1993, 47, 821-853; Parasitol. Today 1990, 6, 270-275), and viral infections (Biochem. 1992, 31, 7862-7869).
A variety of cysteine proteinases have been shown to be present in mammalian tissue. The most notable of these proteinases are the lysosomal cathepsins (cathepsin B, H, S, L and K) and the cytoplasmic Ca.sup.+2 dependent enzymes, the calpains. These enzymes are, therefore, excellent targets for specific inhibitors as therapeutic agents for the conditions such as those noted above.
Cysteine proteinases are inhibited by several types of peptide derived inhibitors such as peptidyl aldehyde (Eur. J. Biochem. 1982, 129, 33-41), chloromethyl ketone (Acta. Biol. Med. Ger. 1981, 40, 1503-1511), diazomethyl ketone (Biochemistry 1977, 16, 5857-5861), monofluoromethyl ketone (Biochemical Pharmacology 1992 44, 1201-1207), acyloxy methyl ketone (J. Med. Chem. 1994, 37, 1833-1840), O-acyl hydroxamates (Biochem. Biophy. Research Communications 1988, 155, 1201-1206), methyl sulphonium salts (J. Biol. Chem. 1988, 263, 2768-2772) and epoxy succinyl derivatives (Agric. Biol. Chem. 1978, 42, 523-527) without significantly inhibiting other classes of proteinases.